It’s yet another masterpiece from the Italian director Francesco Rosi, adapting a fiction novel about a political murder conspiracy that is altogether too much of a good fit for the troubled Italy of 1975. Crime star Lino Ventura is the incorruptible detective investigating a series of killings of high-level judges, who begins to intuit that his superiors want the murders to continue. Dark and moody, Rosi’s picture is impeccably directed for a kind of nagging, uneasy suspense, with frightening hints that Ventura is being drawn into a bigger, more sinister frame. With Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow and Fernando Rey, and music by Piero Piccioni. The insightful audio commentary is by Alex Cox. The original Italian title is even more blood-curdling: Cadaveri eccelenti.
Illustrious Corpses
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Cadaveri eccellenti; The Context / Street Date September 28, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi,...
Illustrious Corpses
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Cadaveri eccellenti; The Context / Street Date September 28, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi,...
- 9/4/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It’s a perfect movie for a dark time: Carlo Levi’s famed novel about a political undesirable became a major Italian miniseries by the great Francesco Rosi, starring the now-legendary Gian Maria Volontè. In Mussolini’s most popular years of make-Italy-great-again Fascism, a dissident is given an indefinite ‘time out,’ an exile to a small town in a corner of the country so remote and primitive that not even Christianity could fully change it. He expects nothing but receives revelations about his country, his life and one’s place in society. It’s meditative, it’s illuminating, it’s like a book one can’t put down. It’s also uncut, as opposed to the theatrical version that made a splash here in 1980, as simply Eboli.
Christ Stopped at Eboli
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1043
1979 / Color / 1:33 flat / 220 150, 120 min. / Cristo si è fermato a Eboli / available through The Criterion Collection...
Christ Stopped at Eboli
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1043
1979 / Color / 1:33 flat / 220 150, 120 min. / Cristo si è fermato a Eboli / available through The Criterion Collection...
- 9/22/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Who is Emmanuelle? In the 1970s, the name was synonymous with sophisticated sensuality. French director Just Jaeckin’s 1974 film, based on a 1959 erotic novel and starring Sylvia Kristel as the sexually adventurous title character, launched a soft focus empire leading to two more canonical installments, the fabulously titled Emmanuelle II: The Joys of a Woman and Goodbye Emmanuelle. Emmanuelle is playing in a sparkling new restoration at New York's Quad Cinema, alongside the other films in the trilogy and a handful of the more dubious spinoffs. The Quad is also showing six other films by Jaeckin, among them his similarly porno-chic The Story of O (1975) and the wild Indiana Jones rip-off-meets-S&M-cartoon The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak (1984), starring none other than video vixen Tawny Kitaen. Emmanuelle was Jaeckin’s first film and remains his best known—and while it may not be great cinema,...
- 1/25/2019
- MUBI
The Lon Chaney silent The Hunchback of Notre Dame is an important document, and a pretty good movie, especially if you can see it projected. William Dieterle's 1939 film with Charles Laughton is an outright classic, with iconic casting in every role, but in a way it, like its predecessor, is as much a travesty of Victor Hugo's story as the Disney version. Tragedy is softened, hard edges blurred. (And actually there's a lot to admire in the cartoon: an epic cinematic scale and vision, use of humor that doesn't actually wreck the serious aspects. It's just that, starting with Quasimodo not being deaf—because he has to sing, you see—means you're not filming Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo at all.)So it was perhaps inevitable that the French would one day have to show us how it's done, and present a more faithful rendering of the book.
- 12/14/2016
- MUBI
'Father of the Bride': Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams. Top Five Father's Day Movies? From giant Gregory Peck to tyrant John Gielgud What would be the Top Five Father's Day movies ever made? Well, there have been countless films about fathers and/or featuring fathers of various sizes, shapes, and inclinations. In terms of quality, these range from the amusing – e.g., the 1950 version of Cheaper by the Dozen; the Oscar-nominated The Grandfather – to the nauseating – e.g., the 1950 version of Father of the Bride; its atrocious sequel, Father's Little Dividend. Although I'm unable to come up with the absolute Top Five Father's Day Movies – or rather, just plain Father Movies – ever made, below are the first five (actually six, including a remake) "quality" patriarch-centered films that come to mind. Now, the fathers portrayed in these films aren't all heroic, loving, and/or saintly paternal figures. Several are...
- 6/22/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“The most miserable life is better, believe me, than an existence protected by a society where everything’s organized and planned for and perfect,” says Steiner (Alain Cuny), Marcello’s (Marcello Mastroianni) only friend with seemingly any moral fiber or family values in the Rome of upper-class debauchery in which they surf throughout Federico Fellini’s groundbreaking critical masterpiece on the vacuous Roman high-life of the late 50s, La Dolce Vita. Steiner’s fleeting suggestion stands as an epiphanic thesis of Marcello’s own internal struggle to find love and stability while carrying out a career in journalism that takes him gallivanting with royalty and movie stars throughout all the ancient and newly minted quarters of Rome. The final frames of the film featuring Paola’s (Valeria Ciangottini) subtle glance to the audience suggest that in this new hodge-podge of old and evolving culture, only the innocence of youth has...
- 10/21/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
'Emmanuelle' movies producer Alain Siritzky dead at 72 (photo: Sylvia Kristel in 'Emmanuelle' 1974) Emmanuelle franchise producer Alain Siritzky died after what has been described as "a short illness" on Saturday, October 11, 2014, at a Paris hospital. Siritzky, whose credits include dozens of Emmanuelle movies and direct-to-video efforts, several of which starring Sylvia Kristel in the title role, was 72. Ironically, Alain Siritzky didn't produce the original, epoch-making 1974 Emmanuelle. He became involved in that Yves Rousset-Rouard production via his Parafrance Films, which distributed Emmanuelle in France. 'Emmanuelle': 1974 movie sensation A couple of years after the release of Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones (not to mention Boys in the Sand and Eyes of a Stranger), and the year after Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider sparked a furor by having simulated sex in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, the 1974 French release Emmanuelle still managed to become a worldwide cause célèbre.
- 10/15/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
I first watched Federico Fellini's 1960 film, La Dolce Vita, just over five years ago and with this week marking what would have been the filmmaker's 94th birthday I've chosen La Dolce Vita as the debut film in my Best Movies feature. Not because I believe it to be his best (though it certainly is one of the best), but largely because I've had the urge to watch it again ever since learning Paramount has finally been granted exclusive rights to the film, prompting me to hope it will finally receive a domestic Blu-ray release sometime soon. Captured in lovely black-and-white, Otello Martelli's cinematography lives up to the literal translation of the film's title -- "the sweet life" -- while the narrative focuses on a character living a life more empty than "sweet". Marking the first time Marcello Mastroianni and Fellini would work together, Mastroianni plays Marcello Rubini, a...
- 1/22/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
In France, during the Nazi occupation of World War II, filmmakers faced the challenge of creating entertainment that might still carry with it the French perspective of the enemy occupation while still making it past Nazi censors who enforced considerably harsher penalties than the MPAA (like death, for example). This posed a challenge for filmmakers like Marcel Carné who desired to comment on the deplorable situation through his work without being penalized for political messaging. His solution: Les Visiteurs du Soir (or The Devil’s Envoys), a story set in the time of kings and traveling minstrels imbued with heavy themes of an evil working from within to destroy youth, love, and order. The classic film receives the Criterion Collection Blu-ray restoration treatment here, but it’s worth noting that the print from which it’s derived is not without its share of quality issues, but the bewitching beauty of Arletty,...
- 11/16/2012
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
Known for creating some of the most important films in French history, and during Nazi Occupation, no less, Criterion issues two of Marcel Carne’s most widely acclaimed masterpieces, his crowning achievement, Children of Paradise (1945), which, if you haven’t seen, you need to, and a noteworthy work that directly precedes it, Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942), which has long since been popularly interpreted as an allegory of the hostile occupation. While this interpretation is hardly surprising and seems rather fitting, Carne’s film is much more universal than that, instead conveying the unbreakable spirit of pure love. Presented like the dark, harsh fairy tale it is, Carne managed to create a sumptuously poetic, luxurious film about how love does not indeed conquer all, but can perhaps endure.
Pages flipped by a dark gloved hand inform us that our tale is set in the Middle Ages, May of 1485. Two of the devil’s envoys,...
Pages flipped by a dark gloved hand inform us that our tale is set in the Middle Ages, May of 1485. Two of the devil’s envoys,...
- 9/25/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
51 years ago today, on April 19th 1961, Federico Fellini's masterpiece "La Dolce Vita" arrived in U.S. theaters. The film was already a phenomenon; it had premiered in Italy the previous February, was instantly condemned by the Catholic Church (it was banned entirely in Spain until 1975), and won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1960. On its U.S. release, it was widely acclaimed by critics, became a huge box office hit, and picked up four Oscar nominations the following year, including director and screenplay, and won for costume design.
To mark the anniversary of the much copied, but never equalled film which follows a journalist, played by Marcello Mastroianni over the course of a tumultous week in Rome, we've assembled a selection of five pieces of info that even the biggest Fellini fans might not be aware of. Check them out below.
1. Paul Newman and Henry Fonda were considered for roles.
To mark the anniversary of the much copied, but never equalled film which follows a journalist, played by Marcello Mastroianni over the course of a tumultous week in Rome, we've assembled a selection of five pieces of info that even the biggest Fellini fans might not be aware of. Check them out below.
1. Paul Newman and Henry Fonda were considered for roles.
- 4/18/2012
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
Jean Gabin, Simone Simon, La Bête Humaine Jean Gabin on TCM: Grand Illusion, Pepe Le Moko, Touchez Pas Au Grisbi Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Gueule D'Amour (1937) A retired cavalry officer discovers the woman who won his heart was in love with the uniform. Dir: Jean Grémillon. Cast: Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin. Bw-88 mins. 8:00 Am Remorques (1941) A married tugboat captain falls for a woman he rescues from a sinking ship. Dir: Jean Grémillon. Cast: Jean Gabin, Alain Cuny, Bw-83 mins. 9:30 Am Le Jour Se Leve (1939) A young factory worker loses the woman he loves to a vicious schemer. Dir: Marcel Carne. Cast: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty. Bw-90 mins. 11:00 Am L'air De Paris (1954) An over-the-hill boxer stakes his fortune on training a young railroad-worker. Dir: Marcel Carne. Cast: Arletty, Jean Gabin, Roland Lesaffre. Bw-100 mins. 1:00 Pm Leur Derniere Nuit (1953) A schoolteacher...
- 8/19/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Now that the 2010 line-up for the Criterion Collection has finally been announced with last week’s December titles, we can begin speculating on what we’ll get in 2011. With over 50 spine numbers in 2010, will we see # 600 in 2011? At the rate that Criterion is churning out these discs, we have to assume so. Where will they get all of these upcoming titles from?
Well, over the past few months we’ve seen several titles from MGM’s catalog announced, and hinted at in their monthly newsletter. Most likely due to MGM’s current financial problems, it’s nice to see Criterion stepping up to rescue these films from the abyss of “out of print”. If you head over to the various forums (CriterionForum.org, Mubi, etc.) you’ll find many people speculating on the MGM titles that Criterion has acquired the rights to. While some are mostly speculation, I have had...
Well, over the past few months we’ve seen several titles from MGM’s catalog announced, and hinted at in their monthly newsletter. Most likely due to MGM’s current financial problems, it’s nice to see Criterion stepping up to rescue these films from the abyss of “out of print”. If you head over to the various forums (CriterionForum.org, Mubi, etc.) you’ll find many people speculating on the MGM titles that Criterion has acquired the rights to. While some are mostly speculation, I have had...
- 9/20/2010
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Marco Ferreri’s Don’t Touch The White Woman boasts a unique premise: a satirical and often absurdist historical reenactment of Custer’s famed Battle at Little Big Horn, more famously known as Custer’s Last Stand. The absurdist elements are increasingly accentuated by the fact that all proceedings take place on the streets of 1970s (then modern-day) Paris, with military engagements playing out on a vast construction site. The characters are adorned with historically correct uniforms and sport a variety of beards and sabers, galloping on stallions through Parisian suburbs while onlookers in T-shirts and jeans look on. A plump anthropologist adorned in sweaters bearing the insignia of American colleges lurks throughout, often feasting on a bag of chips. This is Ferreri’s vision of American corruption, the poisonous effects of the American myth and the mistreatment of American Indians. Unfortunately, Don’t Touch The White Woman is labored and slow to develop,...
- 7/16/2009
- by Mark Zhuravsky
- JustPressPlay.net
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.